


Better Together

by SmartKIN



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Friends to Lovers, Guns, Mentions of alcohol, Multi, Polyamory, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:44:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6631873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmartKIN/pseuds/SmartKIN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles asks Braeden to teach him how to shoot a gun. Somehow Boyd gets roped into it too and then it’s all downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nezstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nezstorm/gifts).



> I didn’t have a beta reader for this, all mistakes are obviously mine. I’ve never written a poly ship before, not properly at least, I’m dying to know what you think!
> 
> Birthday fic for my precious Mar! <3

It started out simple. In other words—because it included Stiles—it was actually rather complicated.

 

The first time he and Braeden were almost alone in Derek’s loft, Stiles asked her the most important question. But not before jiggling his leg a lot, and stressing over the right way to phrase his request. Braeden intimidated the hell out of him, okay? It was only natural that he didn’t want to get on her bad side.

 

So he gathered all his wits about him and turned to where Braeden was sitting on the only comfy chair in Derek’s possession, feet put up on the table, leafing idly through an old copy of _Reader’s Digest_ that she had probably found underneath Derek’s bed or wherever it was that he was keeping his literary treasures he didn’t want anybody to know about.

 

“Soooo,” he started and already hated where this was going.

 

Braeden raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips, but didn’t look up.

 

“Can you teach me how to shoot a gun?”

 

 _Now_ she looked at him, but her expression was one of incredulity. It was okay, he had expected this.

 

“Aren’t you the sheriff’s son?”

 

“Yes,” he agreed somewhat reluctantly, “but he did his very best to keep all firearms away from me.”

 

Boyd suddenly appeared by their side and Stiles tried not to freak out about it. He hadn’t known that his packmate was still here.

 

“You would have shot somebody on accident,” the tall teenager muttered and plopped down on the couch beside him.

 

“Rude!”

 

Braeden snorted.

 

“Now _that_ I can imagine.”

 

“You taught Derek, didn’t you?” Stiles asked with a pout.

 

Braeden and Boyd exchanged a Look that he couldn’t decipher. Great. This was going really well.

 

“Look, if you are concerned, we can do it right here, and Boyd can keep watch,” he tried. If they didn’t agree after that, he would have to regroup and refine his sales pitch.

 

“Derek would kill you,” Boyd said after a moment while Braeden finally closed the magazine in her lap.

 

“He doesn’t have to find out,” he quickly added in a hopeful tone of voice, causing the others to sigh. Which was good, a sigh usually meant that he had them.

 

Aw yes!

 

*

 

Derek would definitely find out about it, if only for the bullet holes in his walls.

 

*

 

After the disaster at Derek’s loft, Braeden agreed to give him one more lesson, this time in the woods. Boyd reluctantly trudged along. It wasn’t so much that Stiles was bad at shooting per se, he was just too excitable and jittery for anybody’s liking. You needed a steady grip and a calm disposition, maybe, none of which he was particularly known for.

 

Suffice to say, the second lesson was going rather poorly, too.

 

But Stiles had enough perseverance for at least five people, if he wanted to learn something he’d keep at it until he got it down.

 

(Which was the reason why he could bake a layered red velvet cake and decorate it with flowers made out of frosting, but sucked rather a lot at regular cooking. His 14 year old self had wanted to impress Lydia into going out with him, so he had practiced baking that cake for Valentine’s Day until it was absolutely perfect—he and his dad had had to eat mediocre cake for weeks until the sheriff couldn’t take it anymore and simply threw it all out and bought himself an extra large pizza—but Stiles had never had enough incentive to actually learn how to cook, his dad’s high cholesterol notwithstanding.)

 

So when Stiles had said he wanted to learn how to shoot a gun, he meant it. And he would try until there were no more trees he could shoot at and no more bullets left in the entire town, if that was what it took.

 

(He hoped it didn’t.)

 

In any event, things were not looking up, that was to say, he wasn’t doing so great, even after half an hour of trying to hit the target.

 

Braeden had actually gone out of her way to set this up; there were bottles and cans of varying sizes stacked up neatly on top of a fallen tree trunk, a couple of different calibers and models all laid out on a flat rock so that he could find one he was most comfortable with and she had even brought earmuffs for protection and snacks for later.

 

What a goddess.

 

Stiles, however, was getting more nervous by the second. Here he was, earmuffs hiding the flushed tips of his ears (if not his ruddy cheeks), missing bottle after bottle, wasting everybody’s time while Boyd leaned against a nearby tree, arms crossed in front of his chest and looking as stoic and unimpressed by Stiles as ever, and Braeden in all her leather-clad glory trying to not lose her patience with him.

 

It would be so much easier if he could just do this by himself. Then, nobody would be witnessing his failing. But his dad had managed to instill a healthy respect for guns in him at an early age and he knew that shooting guns by yourself in the woods only led to tears and somebody getting killed. Especially with his very own brand of phenomenally bad luck.

 

In hindsight he probably should have asked somebody else to teach him, though. Then he wouldn’t be making an ass out of himself in front of the two coolest people he knew. Maybe it was because neither Boyd nor Braeden took any of his shit that he actually wanted them to like him. He could talk circles around most people, but not these two.

 

His grip around the gun tightened a little and he bit his lips. He was getting too worked up, but he couldn’t exactly stop it.

 

Taking what he hoped was a steadying breath, he concentrated on everything Braeden had told him to keep in mind, and squeezed the trigger.

 

The shot missed the target by a couple of feet and hit a distant tree.

 

Again.

 

God dammit. Would he ever learn?

 

He pushed the earmuffs off his ears until they hung around his neck.

 

“Maybe we should call it a day,” said Braeden after a moment of silence that had stretched too long already.

 

He stiffened.

 

“But you said you’d only do this once,” he complained. He knew that he was just wasting her time, but it wasn’t exactly his fault that he sucked at this.

 

“Look,” she said in her sassy no-nonsense voice, and Stiles tried his best not to be distracted by her, well, everything, “not everybody is cut out for this.”

 

He shook his head in denial.

 

“But I have to be.”

 

He knew he was being stupid. It was partly fueled by the fact that he was the sheriff’s kid and needed to be good at this for his own sense of self, but there was also the fact that he needed to be useful in a fight, and his vague mountain ash wielding skills didn’t really cut it.

 

But there was an even bigger reason why we wanted to do this so badly.

 

“Why are you so fixated on this?”

 

He didn’t want to say it out loud, to be honest. He was already pathetic enough. But Braeden’s furrowed brow made it clear that he needed to give her a good reason if he wanted her continued help.

 

“I don’t feel safe anymore.”

 

His voice sounded rough in his own ears.

 

“The things we’ve been through...,” he continued, and had to look away from her searching gaze. This was difficult enough without seeing the reaction to his words. He gazed at the assembled targets and was hyper-aware of Boyd’s silent presence a couple of feet away. “having a werewolf for a best friend, or being part of a pack, hell, even having a sheriff for a dad and a family of hunters at my disposal… it’s not exactly keeping me safe. I’ve been kidnapped, and beaten up, possessed; and those are just the highlights. I need—”

 

He cut himself off and bit his lip again.

 

He hated letting people see what was really going on inside his head. He usually did everything in his power to deflect that sort of attention. But there was no way around it this time.

 

“I need to be able to defend myself.”

 

Silence followed in the wake of his words. He tried not to vibrate out of his own skin with the need to hide. Whoever had said that talking about your feelings was healthy was a filthy liar.

 

He tapped his nervous fingers all over the shaft of the gun, just to occupy himself with _something_.

 

“Alright,” Braeden concurred, and cocked her head in contemplation.

 

He startled a little when broad hands suddenly fell on his shoulders from behind. It was Boyd.

 

Stiles would never say this out loud, but the warm, strong grip and the general calmness that always oozed off the taller team managed to relax him somewhat.

 

“Listen, Stilinski,” said the werewolf, “you are way too fidgety. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

 

And this was how Boyd was roped into helping him.

 

Following Boyd’s lead, he closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. He got this, he was a pro at breathing exercises after all. And if he leaned a little into his touch, well, he’d never admit to that out loud.

 

Braeden’s voice was the epitome of professionalism when she finally thought he’d calmed down enough to try again.

 

“Let’s go over the basics one more time.”

 

*

 

After that it became a weekly thing. Not so much because Stiles continued to suck, but because there was always one more thing that either Braeden or Boyd thought they could teach him. One month in they stopped bringing snacks and simply went to a diner to appease their raging appetite.

 

The first time they did so, it was the day Stiles managed to hit all six targets more or less in a row. Naturally, a celebration was in order and they quickly piled into Braeden’s Navigator, heading over to By The Pound, Beacon Hills’ finest burger joint.

 

Stiles had only been there once, back when it had first opened, because his dad had tried every trick in the book to weasel out of his dieting, just to check it out. He hadn’t come back, though, and not because it was expensive, but rather because he didn’t want to give his dad any ideas, who was like freaking Sherlock Holmes when it came to deducing the consumption of junk food in his vicinity. And in all honesty, McDonald’s was more his style anyway.

 

But a celebration was a celebration was a celebration, and really, Stiles would never say no to people appreciating his skills, no matter what area, and his growing prowess with a gun could definitely use some positive reinforcement, just in case it had been a fluke after all.

 

By the time Braeden rolled into the restaurant’s parking lot it was almost empty, the afternoon having slipped into that in-between space where people no longer craved lunch, and were still full enough to give dinner a wide berth (not that Stiles was haunted by such an affliction, he could eat any time of the day, no matter when his last meal had been consumed).

 

Stiles wasn’t so sure how he felt about being among the only customers and finally decided that it was a mixed bag, they wouldn’t have to fall back on drastic measures to get a table, but they would also stick out more, and Stiles was already feeling severely underdressed in T-shirt and a hoodie next to Braeden’s biker-chic getup. It was similarly unfair that Boyd could be dressed in jeans and tee and simply look cool whereas Stiles just looked like a gigantic nerd.

 

Swallowing around this sudden bout of self-consciousness that clogged up his throat, he trailed after his pack mates like a lost duckling while they entered the restaurant and were led to a cosy table in the back.

 

Braeden seized one of the chairs, shrugging out of her leather jacket and draping it over the backrest, her tanktop leaving little to the imagination and making Stiles’ mouth go dry. When Boyd simply fell into the opposite chair, long and muscular limbs sprawled attractively all over the place, Stiles decided once again that, yes, he was absolutely bi, thank you very much.

 

He slid onto the red vinyl bench and tried not to bump into anyone’s legs in a weird way.

 

“Man,” he said to dispel his own feeling of awkwardness and pulled one of the menues a little closer. “I’m starving.”

 

Boyd rolled his eyes.

 

“You’re always starving.”

 

Stiles glanced at him, a self-conscious smile tugging on his lips.

 

“ _True_ , but now I have a legitimate excuse!”

 

Braeden picked up one of the menus herself and commented, almost parenthetically, while studying the list of specials; “You don’t need excuses to eat burgers.”

 

Boyd huffed in amusement—his version of a chuckle—and Stiles snickered. No-nonsense Braeden was his favorite, which was great, because she was always like that.

 

Thinking their conversation over, he startled a little when Boyd suddenly leaned forwards and squeezed his forearm with one of his broad hands.

 

“But seriously, Stilinski, you did well today.”

 

A bubble of happiness burst in his chest and he felt himself blush a little. Getting a compliment from Boyd was like hitting the friendship lottery. He settled back in his seat, every trace of awkwardness forgotten, and perused the menu with a silly grin on his face, secretly wishing that every day could be like this.

 

*

 

Without a particular reason as to why, Stiles had assumed that Braeden and Boyd wouldn’t really be socializing with him outside of their somewhat clandestine meetings. He wasn’t awesome enough to be acknowledged by the cool kids, and he’d always figured that at least Boyd didn’t want to be seen with him in public. And Braeden seemed way too mature to find a conversation with him in any way interesting, eternal child that he was.

 

So when Boyd plonked down next to him during a pack meeting and started talking about their English Lit assignment, it took him a couple of moments to get with the program.

 

It was only when Braeden kept throwing Hershey’s Kisses at him throughout the meeting to test his reflexes that Stiles fully understood what was going on.

 

They had become friends.

 

And not only had Stiles been the last one to notice, he'd apparently also been the only one who thought the other two would be too embarrassed to show it.

 

Something deep inside his chest started to unwind, something he hadn’t known was tense before, and he was quite overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of emotions, so he did the only thing he was able to do: kick Braeden’s legs off the table when another piece of chocolate hit him square in the face, much to Boyd’s unchecked amusement.

 

*

 

Stiles didn’t know when and how he’d acquired the knowledge that both Boyd and Braeden loved listening to jazz—they might have bonded over it while Stiles had been high on his continued success in the gun wielding department, but he couldn’t be sure. Somehow that knowledge was simply there in his brain when one day, brought to the forefront when he stumbled from one Wikipedia article to the next and realized that an actress he quite liked was also a singer and had produced an album with jazz covers a few years ago.

 

“Huh,” he mumbled, and tumbled even further down the rabbit hole that was the Internet, first landing on YouTube and then eventually on Amazon. It seemed only natural to purchase said album, thinking he could make his new friends happy.

 

By the time the package arrived at his doorstep, he had lost all his courage and hid the CD at the back of his overflowing desk drawer.

 

*

 

When Boyd laughed at one of his silly jokes for the first time, Stiles thought that it had to be a sure sign of the impending apocalypse. The entire situation was probably ruined by him gaping at the werewolf as if he’d grown a second head, but he just couldn’t help it. Boyd never laughed at his jokes.

 

Feeling suspicious, Stiles leaned over Boyd’s half-empty glass of water and took a cautious sniff. Boyd throws a pillow at him in retaliation.

 

“Don’t make this weird, Stilinski.”

 

Stiles stuck out his tongue, trying to ignore how his heart was beating too quickly in his chest, and completely missed the way Braeden was smiling fondly at their antics.

 

*

 

Shooting and, later, self-defense lessons stopped being enough after a while and they started hanging out during the week, too. New traditions emerged that had little to do with the protection of their territory or their pack and were simply kept up for the sheer heck of it.

 

One of those traditions was movie night, usually on Fridays, and it became such a regular occurrence that his dad didn’t even bat an eyelid when he encountered them in the living room. To be fair, the Sheriff had stopped being surprised by pretty much anything to do with the pack, but that was neither here nor there.

 

Traditions usually came with rules, and so did their movie nights. It was just that nobody ever followed them. Initially they had agreed on a rota for everything: picking out a movie, bringing snacks, providing the venue.

 

In practice it was more like this: no matter whose turn it was to pick a movie, the other two pitched in and complained and argued until it was a whole freaking debate on whether to watch _Die Hard_ for the fifth time or rather _The Last Unicorn_ ; neither Braeden nor Boyd would ever let him live down the fact that he owned a copy, regardless of how many times he tried to convince them that it was a classic, god dammit.

 

Stiles’ living room soon became the permanent venue for their shenanigans after one try too many to fit them all onto Braeden’s small bed (the only piece of furniture one could comfortably sit on in the spartan room she had rented) and they always felt slightly guilty taking over an entire room of the Boyd household when there were just so many Boyds who might want to use it, too.

 

And the snack rota, well. Braeden was the only adult in this scenario so she always felt compelled to bring something, and Boyd’s mom was simply overjoyed that Boyd was hanging out with other people now that she always baked or cooked something for them, and Stiles was simply too much of a mother hen to not provide food for his friends, and also _what if this was the time the others forgot to bring something??_

 

Needless to say, they always ended up with enough food to feed a small army. Nobody complained, least of all the sheriff.

 

Eventually they always fell into an inevitable food coma and queued just one more episode of whatever crappy show Braeden had convinced them to watch.

 

*

 

It wasn’t as if he neglected his other friends in favor of Boyd and Braeden. They didn’t hang out _all the time_. There were still the study dates with Lydia that felt more like the Spanish Inquisition, and all those afternoons he spent shooting zombies and overdosing on sugar with Scott.

 

It was just that, now, Stiles didn’t have to rely on only his best friend to fulfill his emotional needs, and thus falling utterly short. One person could never be enough to give Stiles all the human contact that he needed, and it had never been fair that he had expected Scott to do so anyway.

 

If he was completely honest with himself, hanging out with B&B (as he had come to call them in his head) brought an ease to his interactions with Scott that had been absent for a long time. Maybe even longer than Scott had been a werewolf.

 

*

 

If anybody thought that it was weird that Stiles, Boyd and Braeden were closer all of a sudden, they didn’t show it, apart from the occasional lifted eyebrow during pack gatherings.

 

Stiles knew that he probably wasn’t fooling anybody, and for all he knew, the werewolves could smell the gunpowder residue on him, together with the scent of greasy food and local flora that was no doubt clinging to his clothes.

 

Yeah, so he was watching too many adaptations of Sherlock Holmes these days, what else was new.

 

*

 

It was another Friday and Stiles couldn’t wait to go home and prepare for movie night. Last period had never been such a drag before and he was quite unable to listen to Mr. Fletcher drone on and on about the Civil War (his favorite subject, apparently, if the annual repetition of the same old spiel was anything to go by). Instead his mind was occupied with assembling a list of movies they could watch tonight, fondly anticipating the arguments that would without doubt break out.

 

He was startled out of his thoughts when Scott suddenly leaned into his personal space.

 

A quick glance confirmed that Fletcher was occupied at the blackboard, and he turned his attention to the werewolf. No matter the depths of their bromance, he could not risk getting detention on a Friday.

 

“Want to hang out after school?” Scott asked, face shifting into that eager puppy-like smile that Stiles usually found very hard to resist.

 

Stiles grimaced.

 

Scott never asked him to hang out on Fridays anymore, usually preferring to spend them with Kira and Allison, the lucky dog. The girls had to have other plans, then.

 

Noticing his hesitation, Scott brought out the big guns: “Mom got me the new Mass Effect…”

 

“Ugh,” he hissed and dragged a hand over his face. Why did he always have to be faced with such difficult choices? It was not fair. But even has he dragged his metaphorical feet, Stiles knew in his heart that it wasn’t a choice at all. “Dude, I can’t today.”

 

Scott’s eyebrow climbed towards his hairline in blatant incredulity.

 

“Boyd and Braeden are coming over,” he muttered, feeling flustered all of a sudden. He realized that he’d never actually told anybody about hanging out with them on a regular basis, apart from his dad, of course, who effectively owned their living room and thus needed to be informed about such matters.

 

Scott’s expression softened.

 

“It’s cool, I get it.”

 

Before he could ask what Scott meant by that, Fletcher turned away from the blackboard and cast his watchful gaze across his students.

 

*

 

Stiles started getting suspicious about his own feelings on a cold day in April. It was technically after school and there wasn’t much going on apart from Lacrosse training, and he was just getting ready for suicide runs with Scott by his side when Erica’s voice drifts over to them from the bleachers.

 

“Are you going to ask her out?”

 

Her voice was sharp and predatory and a little bit mocking. It was that last inflection that caught his attention and he glanced over to where the non-Lacrosse-playing pack members could usually be found watching the training more often than not.

 

When his gaze landed on Boyd, his ribcage suddenly felt a few sizes too small.

 

“Ask who out?” rumbled Boyd and for a moment Stiles could breathe again.

 

Erica flipped her hair across her shoulder and regarded her best friend with a huge grin that was all teeth.

 

“That girl in our chem class that’s been flirting with you! What’s her name? Maddison?”

 

Yep, no, Stiles hated where that conversation was going. He turned away and focused on stretching his legs, unaware that Scott was watching him now.

 

 _Stretching was important_ , he mentally shouted at himself in order to try and drown out Boyd’s low reply. He needed to prepare himself for the Coach’s tyranny. He didn’t have time to listen to gossip. It wasn’t his business anyway. They were just friends. He was just mad because a girlfriend would undoubtedly cut into their bro time with Braeden. Yeah. That was all.

 

*

 

They were back at By The Pound and Stiles was stuffing his mouth with homemade fries to appease the black hole in his stomach. God, was he hungry. And sore. And tired. Self-defense lessons were killing him. There was not a muscle in his entire body that didn’t hate him right now. But he knew that he would be grateful for it as soon as the next crisis descended upon Beacon Hills, so he didn’t complain and just inhaled his food.

 

Well okay, he didn’t complain _much_.

 

Complaining was like the one thing he was naturally good at, and he was reluctant to give up such a reliable skill. At least he didn’t whine and chew at the same time.

 

When all the food was consumed and Boyd ordered another round of soda, Braeden leaned forward, propping her folded arms on the table. Stiles instinctively shifted closer when he recognized her expression as having something to say.

 

The smirk tugging on her lips was almost imperceptible instead of loud and mocking, which was the only indication that she was slightly nervous.

 

Huh.

 

The last time Braeden had been anything but sure of herself was when she had accidentally knocked him out during one of their training exercises.

 

“I got a job,” she finally said, not one for beating around the bush. “As a bouncer at a nightclub.”

 

Stiles felt an answering grin bloom on his face and he couldn’t help but giddily nudge Boyd’s knee with his own.

 

Braeden getting a job could only mean one thing: she was planning to stay.

 

*

 

It had to happen eventually, and Stiles found that he was not prepared in the slightest.

 

It was just his luck that his Jeep had decided to break down on the road leading out of the preserve on the day he’d gone to collect wolfsbane flowers to replenish his dwindling stash of magical goodies. It still didn’t sit quite right with him to own something that was so lethal to most of his friends, but he’d learned the hard way that not all werewolves were friendly and more often than not he used the deceptively pretty plant to save somebody from hunter-inflicted bullet wounds. What even was his life.

 

But then his Jeep had to break down and Stiles was promptly on his phone dialling Braeden’s number, because he didn’t fancy another hike when darkness was already descending upon the creepy-ass woods and he knew better than to call a werewolf for help when he had traces of wolfsbane all over his hands and probably clothes (because he was just that clumsy).

 

Braeden picked up on the second ring and calmly listened to his plight. She was just telling him that she’d be there in ten minutes when he suddenly heard a deep growl coming from the trees not far from his car.

 

“ _What the hell was that?_ ” Braeden hissed on the other end, but Stiles was already scrambling for the slightly illegal gun he kept in his glove box for situations like this. Seriously, _his life_.

 

“Uhm,” he whispered, and almost peed himself when he heard another growl, “please hurry!”

 

Dropping the phone on the passenger seat in favor of his gun, he made sure there were bullets in the clip and proceeded to self-consciously release the safety catch.

 

The resounding _click_ was impossibly loud, making him flinch.

 

He didn’t feel any safer, not even now when he knew how to use this thing.

 

Swallowing thickly, he eased out of his Jeep and hoped that Braeden would fucking hurry up. He so did not want to die tonight.

 

Taking one calming breath after the other, he stared into the darkening woods, trying to find the source of the growl. Was it a rogue werewolf? Or something worse?

 

Panic was hovering at the edges of his mind and he wished he wasn’t so fucking alone out here.

 

Later, he would think back to this very moment and wonder if he should have locked himself up inside his Jeep, but he still wasn't sure if the car was enough to keep out supernatural predators. Probably not.

 

Another growl warned him of the imminent attack and he barely had time to train his weapon in the direction of the sound.

 

Everything happened so quickly.

 

A rabid wendigo broke out of the bushes, charging at him at full speed, and Stiles did the only thing he could: he pulled the trigger. And again. And again.

 

*

 

It felt like no time had passed when a certain Navigator came bombing up the forest road. A blink, and his pack was here. Stiles was still standing next to his Jeep, gun in a lose grip, dead Wendigo lying a couple of feet away. The Navigator had barely come to a stop when Braeden already jumped out, Boyd close on her heels. Stiles could see the exact moment the werwolf smelled the wolfsbane on him, causing him to rear back with a snarl.

 

A strangled sound fell from Stiles’ lips, half sob, half laugh, and he wanted nothing more than crash against the hulking form that was Boyd. He’d been attacked and he’d come out victorious and he deserved the physical reassurance of his pack, god dammit.

 

Thankfully his distress was short lived for Braeden pulled him into a forceful hug that almost made up for Boyd’s inability to join them, and when he caught the eyes of the other teen over her shoulder all he could see was a fierce sort of pride looking back at him.

 

Stiles clung to Braeden as she crooned praise into his ear and never looked away from Boyd, wondering if the intense emotions rolling over him were what pack bonds felt like.

 

*

 

Stiles was disappointed with himself.

 

He should have known sooner, should have recognized the signs. It shouldn’t have taken a totally random person asking him out on a date to fully understand his own stupid feelings.

 

It was pathetic, really. And here he’d thought he was one of the clever ones. But no. He was sure that Lydia would have taken great pleasure in deconstructing his own sense of self-importance right about now, if she’d been here to witness his shortcomings. And he would have let her, god dammit, because he was really fucking dumb sometimes.

 

The girl, who may or may not have been in his biology class for the past three years, had been cool and easy going when she’d asked him out right after Beacon Hills had won the Lacrosse game against one of their biggest rivals.

 

He’d been surprised, but not as much as he would have been a year ago. While Stiles was nowhere near as gorgeous as the rest of his pack (and god, he really felt like the ugly duckling during their pack meetings), but he wasn’t so bad looking himself now. He’d filled out some, and self-defense lessons as well as running for his life had given him a lithe sort of grace, and growing out his hair had probably been the best decision he had ever made.

 

So he’d been surprised, sure, but mostly because he hadn’t thought about dating in a good long while, not seriously, not outside his own hormone-fueled fantasies.

 

The girl hadn’t taken offense at his stuttered rejection, had grinned in a knowing way at the sudden blush dusting his cheeks and wished him _good luck_ of all things, before ambling away to rejoin her friends.

 

So yes, it had been a long time coming and the ‘good luck’ had finally shaken something lose, something he’d ignored out of practice, because he had always been good at falling for people who were out of his league. It was such a familiar sensation that he hadn’t recognized it at first, but now it was hard to ignore.

 

 _Boyd_ , he thought, his chest squeezing tight. _Braeden_.

 

Stiles had barely made it home, too distracted to drive safely, but he’d managed eventually to park his Jeep haphazardly against the curb before racing into the house and upstairs to his room, heart a beating pulse in his fingertips as he reached for his laptop and googled the one question that terrified him above all others: ‘what do i do if i have a crush on two people at the same time’.

 

It was stupid, and he knew that it wasn’t gonna end well, didn’t even know if either of these gorgeous two people had feelings for him like that, much less the both of them. And even if, by some miracle, they both liked him _like that_ , they were probably not as twisted and weird as Stiles himself. They would never agree to what he really wanted, needed, from them.

 

*

 

All it took, in the end, was honesty.

 

They had survived the SATs. Stiles didn’t quite know how, but they had done it. The celebration at Lydia’s was a given at that point, and her house was already teeming with drunk and delirious teenagers by the time the last pack members (Derek and Braeden) finally deigned to join them. Maybe it was weird having some proper adults at these kinds of parties, but both were freakingly hot, so nobody seemed to mind.

 

Stiles, on the other hand, minded just about everything.

 

He sat on the edge of the pool, bare feet dangling into the cool water, a barely-touched drink standing forgotten by his elbow.

 

He was not surprised when Boyd found him like that, enveloped by the sharp-edged misery of his own doing. The werewolf gracefully sat down next to him, their shoulders brushing against each other, and Stiles took a moment to appreciate the sight of strong calves descending into water.

 

“Man, how tragic,” Boyd muttered sarcastically, “you passed high school with flying colors. Who wouldn’t be sad in your shoes?”

 

Stiles snorted, and recognized the verbal nudge for what it was.

 

He pressed his shoulder briefly into Boyd’s and then thought about confessing his feelings.

 

It wouldn’t be the end of the world. They would be off to college soon, _different colleges_ , and they were tight enough that his stupid crush wouldn’t ruin their friendship permanently. It could be awkward for a while, because, well, he was still Stiles Stilinski, resident king of awkwardness, but they weren’t just friends, but pack as well. And they had been through enough shit over the years that honesty seemed like the proper course of action. At least then they would know why he was miserable, and wouldn’t have to waste time trying to figure out how his mind worked.

 

He sighed.

 

Time to behave like a grown-ass adult for once.

 

“I’m in love with you and Braeden.”

 

There, he’d said it. And it felt fucking awful, why had he thought being truthful about his feelings was a good idea? He would never try to be an adult ever again. Ugh. He grimaced and kicked the pool water.

 

Boyd nudged him with his shoulder.

 

“You’re an idiot, Stilinski.”

 

He looked up in time to catch Boyd’s movement, then he was quite paralyzed when he felt a broad hand cradle his cheek and cool lips brush against his own.

 

The unexpected touch sent a spark through his veins, jumpstarting his sluggish brain, and he crowded closer, eagerly returning the kiss even as a most undignified noise tumbled from his lips, only to be swallowed by Boyd’s fervent mouth.

 

This he had not expected.

 

“What’s a girl gotta do to get herself a piece of this?”

 

Braeden’s sudden appearance caused Stiles to flinch back in surprise, despite the content of her statement. He blushed furiously at his reaction and looked a little helplessly from Boyd’s knowing smirk to Braeden’s cocked eyebrow.

 

“You didn’t think you were fooling anybody, did you?”

 

Happy laughter bubbled up inside of him as Braeden grabbed them both and dragged them to their feet. He had barely managed to get his feet under him when Braden ducked her head to press a tantalizingly fleeting kiss against his tingling lips. When she did the same to Boyd Stiles was struck by the sheer beauty of them together like that.

 

A surge of heat shot through him as he imagined what they would look like sharing a bed with him and he found that he had lost his voice, probably forever.

 

“Come on,” Braeden said as she leaned back a little, taking hold of their hands. “I wanna dance.”

 

With that she herded them both to the designated dance floor and Stiles could only wonder what he’d done to be so lucky.


End file.
